Florida and Raider Unity
Posted by Marthior. Feb 17, 2007.
Raider unity… That mysterious and oft-invoked force that unites a class of people whose mission statement is essentially to cause pointless discord. One might speculate that this is somewhat ironic (i.e., attempting to unite under the banner of disunion). I would respond that it all depends on how we define the true purpose of raiding and raider unity. We’ll save my own definition for another day. For now, I have something else in mind…
It is my intent to define these terms by examining the self-promoted paragon of raider groups commonly known as the DEN. To do this, I will briefly consider the fairly typical DEN response seen in the region of Florida. As most of you will know, the fiasco began with one Desert Ratz of Corporate Conservative adding the following message to the captured region’s factbook: “BoC still better than DEN hahaha”.
Some argue, and not without justification, that this constitutes a mockery of the DEN, insofar as it places the BoC (which was disbanded at the time) above the DEN. Perhaps so, but it was also a rather good imitation of the DEN’s (or should I say “The greatest raider army in NS”) attitude toward the inferior lowlives it affectionately dubs “allies”.
The DEN’s response was hardly surprising. Without bothering to ask the pointman to remove the offending humor, DEN troopers gallantly barged into the region to defend their honor. Faced with profuse and repeated apologies by Desert Ratz, FM Meridianland et al displayed the DEN’s infinite mercy by…demanding an apology. I can only surmise that the DEN, having no real experience in apologizing for its own mistakes, did not understand what constitutes an apology (and therefore saw Ratz’s remorse as another attack against itself).
But now the important part. In response to most posts made by CC members, DEN’s glorious FM also chose to label the group as “fendas” over and over again. Even when it was clarified that the foundation for this accusation (something to do with CC defending Israel) was baseless, she still repeated this little mantra. Now, defenders are held up as the antithesis of raiders. By examining how DEN defines “defender”, we can extrapolate a definition of “raider”.
Typically, a defender is one who attacks regions held by raiders, while a raider is one who attacks neutral or defender regions. However, this cannot be the DEN definition. CC, in classic raider form, had seized the neutral region of Florida only to be attacked by the DEN, yet CC was the “defender” org. Then, when Ratz apologized for his joke (for approximately the 3rd-4th time) on the DEN RMB, the benevolent DEN returned CC’s status to raider.
What CC did (i.e., raid regions) did not change. All that changed was its alignment with respect to DEN (from percieved enemy to ally). So, what does it mean to be a raider and a part of raider unity? Simple: it means to kiss DEN’s ass along with it’s other allies (e.g., GB&I). So when DEN says it’s allied with “all raider orgs”, you can believe it. Of course, it all depends on how you define “raider”.